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Activity Overview

In this activity, students use simulations to answer a popular question involving probabilities. They will use the randInt and mean commands to determine the average number of people that need to be in a room to share a birthday.

Key Steps

In this activity, students will use simulations to answer a popular question regarding probability – how likely is it that a group of people share a birthday. Students begin by collecting the birthdays of everyone in the class and analyzing the data.

Students will then conduct a simulation generating random birthdays to find the average number of people that need to be in a room to have a greater than 50% chance of two people sharing a birthday.